betonbabe:

DAN HOFFMAN

RECORDING WALL, 1992

“Dan Hoffman’s Recording Wall explored and deconstructed the scientific view of the human body at work. By systematically photographing each step in the construction of a masonry wall, Hoffman offered a reinterpretation of time-motion studies, mechanical-reproduction processes (such as photography), and repetitive labor.
An eight-by-sixteen-foot concrete wall was erected without mortar. As a mason set each block into place, a remote shutter release activated cameras positioned on either side of the wall: the wall was photographed each time a block was placed. Light-sensitive emulsion painted on each block allowed the photographs to be printed directly on each respective block’s surface. As a result, each of the 105 blocks carried a photographic record of the progress of the wall being built. It also documented the physical effort required to build it as we see the man working away, block by block.”